Golden Age of Argentine cinema

The Golden Age of Argentine cinema (Spanish: Época de Oro del cine argentino or other equivalent names), sometimes known interchangeably as the broader classical or classical-industrial period (Spanish: período clásico-industrial), is an era in the history of the cinema of Argentina that began in the 1930s and lasted until the 1940s or 1950s, depending on the definition, during which national film production underwent a process of industrialization and standardization that involved the emergence of mass production, the establishment of the studio, genre and star systems, and the adoption of the institutional mode of representation (MRI) that was mainly—though not exclusively—spread by Hollywood, quickly becoming one of the most popular film industries across Latin America and the Spanish-speaking world. Argentine industrial cinema arose in 1933 with the creation of its first and most prominent film studios, Argentina Sono Film and Lumiton, which released ¡Tango! (1933) and Los tres berretines (1933), respectively, two foundational films that ushered in the sound-on-film era. Although they were not national productions, the 1931–1935 films made by Paramount Pictures with tango star Carlos Gardel were a decisive influence on the emergence and popularization of Argentine sound cinema. The nascent film industry grew steadily, accompanied by the appearance of other studios such as SIDE, Estudios Río de la Plata, EFA, Pampa Film and Estudios San Miguel, among others, which developed a continuous production and distribution chain. The number of films shot in the country grew 25-fold between 1932 and 1939, more than any other Spanish-speaking country. By 1939, Argentina established itself as the world's leading producer of films in Spanish, a position that it maintained until 1942, the year in which film production reached its peak for the decade. In classical Argentine cinema, film genres were almost always configured as hybrids, with melodrama emerging as the reigning mode of the period. Its early audience were the urban working classes, so its content was strongly rooted in their culture, most notably tango music and dance, radio dramas, and popular theatrical genres like sainete or the revista porteña (local revue). These forms of popular culture became the main roots of the film industry, from which many of its main performers, directors and screenwriters came. Much of the themes that defined the Argentine sound cinema in its beginnings were inherited from the silent period, including the opposition between the countryside and the city, and the interest in representing the world of tango. As the industry's prosperity increased in the late 1930s, bourgeois characters shifted from villains to protagonists, in an attempt to appeal to the middle classes and their aspirations. Starting in the mid-1940s, Argentine cinema adopted an "internationalist" style that minimized national references, including the disuse of local dialect and a greater interest in adapting works of world literature. Beginning in 1943, as a response to Argentina's neutrality in the context of World War II, the United States imposed a boycott on sales of film stock to the country, causing Mexican cinema to displace Argentina as the market leader in Spanish. During the presidency of Juan Perón (1946–1955), protectionist measures were adopted, which managed to revitalize Argentine film production. However, financial fragility of the industry led to its paralysis once Perón was overthrown in 1955 and his stimulus measures ended. With the studio system entering its definitive crisis, the classical era came to an end as new criteria for funding and shooting films emerged, including the irruption of modernism and auteur films, and a greater prominence of independent cinema. The creation of the National Film Institute in 1957 and the innovative work of figures such as Leopoldo Torre Nilsson gave rise to a new wave of filmmakers in the 1960s, who opposed "commercial" cinema and experimented with new cinematic techniques.

History

Background (1896–1933)

1896–1929: The Argentine silent era

Thomas Edison's first kinetoscopes arrived in Buenos Aires in 1894, but public film projection onto a screen became possible only with the Lumière brothers' cinematograph, with which a series of presentations were made on 18 July 1896 at the Teatro Odeón. In 1897, the first projectors and cameras—from the Lumière and Gaumont firms—reached the country through Enrique Lepage's photography store, Casa Lepage. Their technician, the French Eugenio Py, became the first person to systematically film in Argentina; he shot the short La bandera argentina (1897), a register of the national flag which is generally considered the country's first film. Other authors believe that the first films were made by the German filmmaker Federico Fignero, who shot different views with a vitascope in 1896, with camera operator José Steimberg. In addition to Lepage and Py, the third figure who dominated film production at this time was the Austrian Max Glücksmann, who was initially an employee of Casa Lepage and later acquired the firm in 1908. The works of these early years of Argentine cinema correspond to actuality films. As noted by historian José Agustín Mahieu, this stage of national cinema "naively discovers the magic of movement, the direct capture of the landscape, of the event. The camera is still a primary eye planted in front of the facts. Over any other concern (artistic or cultural) prevails the technical curiosity, the exploration of a tool that is just beginning to be known." Thus, a small-scale commercial exploitation began, with the Casa Lepage offering projectors and films to restaurants, cafes or other entertainment venues. The company dominated the country's film production for a decade, dedicated to filming curiosities and current events such as official state visits, festivities and tourist sights. In 1900, the first movie theater, the Salón Nacional, was inaugurated, and soon more venues dedicated to the projection of films were opened.

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